Summer 2011

Sheesh... I've been reviewing my last several posts and they are pretty pathetic. I pretty much just posted something, anything, to tell people I am still alive and this blog is not dead... yet.

I started a new job at the beginning of August and so much of my job is writing, that it's hard to be super motivated to write once I get home. But I am going to do a better job of writing more often and having more meaningful posts. That is my new goal!

This summer went by way too fast! I remember back at the beginning of June, kind of dreading the summer. I pictured kids who slept in all morning, stayed in their PJ's until 4 p.m., sibling arguments, and me trying desperately to get them to do their chores. Plus it is hard to work from home when my kids are there. I even counted how many weeks we had to persevere (11, by the way.) I thrive on structure, and even though I do love many aspects of summer, the lack of structure scared me.

We had a great summer, though! The first two months were a riot! The kids did a pretty good job on getting their stuff done and we did a lot of fun things, even though we didn't make it to a single neighborhood field trip this year.

Here are a few things that happened in the summer of 2011:

Before my cousin, Janey, got married, she had a girl's weekend in St. George. My Aunt Nancy is always so generous to let us use her vacation home. The funny part of this weekend was that I felt so old! I am the oldest girl cousin and my youngest cousins are 16. So we had the "young" group that were under 30, and then we had the "old" group, who were over 30. Sadly, my sister Tami and I, were in the older group with my two aunts. LOL!

We had fun eating out...

 Eating in...

 Swimming and hanging out by the pool...

And doing facials...

Thanks to my aunts and cousins for such a fun weekend! I had such a good time!!


This summer Caleb's second mom, Marianne, took more pictures of him than I did. (I need to get a camera that I like.) Caleb had a ball spending as much time as possible with his friend, Rhett.

Such cute, cute boys!

Speaking of cute boys...

Matt did the Burley Spudman Triathlon again this year. We look forward to our annual overnight stay in the booming metropolis of Burley, Idaho. This year we brought Caleb along. We had fun eating dinner with our friends, the Isoms, and hanging out with friends from Matt's work.

I'm so proud of my hubby for working so hard to stay in shape! A special thanks to his friends, Sean, Todd, and Adam, who are such good exercise influences on him!


Speaking of good influences...

Aubree had a great summer hanging out with her friends. Between baking all kinds of yummy treats, swimming in all kinds of pools, and making all kinds of crafts, Aubree had one heck of a fun summer!

The end of the school year brought recitals of all kinds. Here is Caleb at his piano recital, with his teacher, Connie Bell.

Tyler attended the school awards assembly dressed in Matt's old Madrigals tux, and dark sunglasses. He got exactly the reaction from the crowd that he was hoping for!

Aubree performed in the school's orchestra concert...

 She also performed in Grandma Julie's studio recital, along with the three boys...

Here's Tyler again in that old tux... (Matt, we are getting your money's worth out of that bad boy!)

Marcus was a finalist in his school's talent show. He had fun playing a Sonatina on the piano. (And scaring small children everywhere with this face!)

Aubree enjoyed performing at Kingsbury Hall for her dance recital. She was in a modern class and a ballet pointe class.

As for me, I enjoyed playing with the kids, going to Snowbird with my whole family for a week (a separate post on that to come), and being involved in city politics.

This cracks me up... I'm not sure why, but I had a photo of a city council meeting on my computer and had to post it. I was actively involved in reporting on things in my city, especially during budget hearings. At the end of the summer, the Mayor hired me to do the PR for the city. It works out well because I only work 30 hours per week while my kids are at school.

GOOD BYE, SUMMER!

Chinese Teachers

I have a second grader who is in the dual-immersion Chinese program. He has been in the program since last year. Ever since day one, his teacher has only spoken Chinese to the class. By mid-year, the kids could only speak Chinese in the class room - to the teacher and to each other.

Today after school, Aubree was telling me about her school classes. She is taking Chinese in junior high. She was telling us something the teacher said and Caleb burst out, "Your teacher speaks English??"

He was quite amazed!

"And please change your underwear every day!"

Last week one of my elementary-aged boys went to Mill Hollow, a fun, three-day camp owned by our school district. It was the longest he has ever been away from home.

As I was driving him to the school to meet the bus, I said, "Make sure you brush your teeth every day, be a good boy, and change your socks every day."

We pulled up to the school, and before he got out I added, "And please change your underwear every day! Promise me you will."

He agreed, hopped on the bus, and we didn't see him for a few days.

When he got home I asked him about the camp. Then he said, "Mom, I changed my socks every day. I kind of forgot to brush my teeth. Oh, and I couldn't ever find any clean underwear in my bag, so I wore the same pair the whole time. Then on the last day I found a pair under all the bags. It was a big mess all over the floor because there were six of us boys in one area and there were clothes EVERYWHERE."

All I could do was smile. As moms, we do the best we can to give good, solid advice, but at the end of the day wearing the same pair of underwear for three days never really hurt anyone. Did it? I'm sure all the boys stunk the same.